Firewood from cut trees is used in fires all over the world on a daily basis. Whether the fire is for heating, lighting, general ambience or the like in a home or at a campsite, the wood must be cut and split for the fire. An ax, a splitting maul, wedge and sledge, or the like is commonly used when manually splitting wood. The log is placed upon a splitting stump and struck in a vertical fashion whereupon the individual pieces fall to the ground. The larger pieces are then placed upon the stump and struck again until all are small enough. Then the user must again bend over and pick up all of the individual pieces of firewood and place them in a wood pile. This results in repeated bending over which can quickly become tiring after a few short minutes, much less after a long session of splitting wood. Accordingly, there exists a need for a means by which the repeated bending over to pick up firewood during a manual splitting operation can be reduced. The use of the split wood retention device reduces the amount of work and repeated bending over associated with manual wood splitting in a manner that is quick, easy, and effective.